Inglewood Told to Pay $118k of Taxpayer Money For Abusing Copyright Law to Silence a Critic

It is, of course, impossible to know with certainty what prompted the City to bring this lawsuit. The City avers that its only motivation was to enforce the rights it believed it had in the videos.... But the Court is not persuaded. As Defendant rightly notes, the main justification of the Copyright Act is "the protection of the commercial interest of the author."... California law, however, prohibits the City from charging anything more than the "direct costs of duplication" when providing public records.... Pecuniary gain, therefore, could not have been the motivating factor in filing this action. As the Court made clear at the hearing, the City's most plausible purpose was to stifle Defendant's political speech after he harshly criticized the City's elected officials. As such, this factor weighs heavily in favor of an attorneys' fees award.

At the hearing, counsel for Plaintiff implied that this Court was basing its ruling on the reaction of the press or the academic community. The Court does not do so.

The Court is also persuaded that a fee award is necessary to deter future meritless litigations of this kind. The City argues that the attorneys' fees "will have absolutely no deterrent effect" on a municipality that intends to file no future copyright lawsuits.... Even if true, the Court notes that deterrence is a broad value that is not limited to the individual litigants here. Indeed, a reasonable award of fees will serve to deter other entities, whether public or private, that contemplate bringing unreasonable suits to pressure an individual into abandoning protected activity.